aroused comment even
in Mayfair; but there were scores of similar rooms in the Majestic. No
one thought twice of them. Her father's dress-coat was thrown arrogantly
over a Louis Quatorze chair, and this careless flinging of the expensive
shining coat across the gilded chair somehow gave Nina a more intimate
appreciation of her father's grandeur and of the great and glorious life
he led. She longed to recline indolently in a priceless tea-gown on the
couch by the fireplace and issue orders.... She approached the
writing-table, littered with papers, documents, in scores and hundreds.
To the left was the brown bag. It was locked, and very heavy, she
thought. To the right was a pile of telegrams. She picked up one, and
read:

'_Pank, Grand Hotel, Birmingham. Why not burgle hotel? Simplest
most effective plan and solves all difficulties._--BELMONT.'

She read it twice, crunched it in her left hand, and picked up another
one:

'_Pank, Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool. Your objection absurd. See safe
in bureau at Majestic. Quite easy. Scene with girl second
evening_.--BELMONT.'

The thing flashed blindingly upon her. Her father and Mr. Pank belonged
to the swell mob of which she had heard and seen so much at Doncaster.
She at once became the excessively knowing and suspicious hotel employe,
to whom every stranger is a rogue until he has proved the contrary. Had
she lived through three St. Leger weeks for nothing? At the hotel at
Doncaster, what they didn't know about thieves and sharpers was not
knowledge. The landlord kept a loaded revolver in his desk there during
the week. And she herself had been provided with a whistle which she was
to blow at the slightest sign of a row; she had blown it once, and seven
policemen had appeared within thirty seconds. The landlord used to tell
tales of masterly and huge scoundrelism that would make Charles Peace
turn in his grave. And the landlord had ever insisted that no one, no
one at all, could always distinguish with certainty between a real gent
and a swell-mobsman.

So her father and Mr. Pank had deceived everyone in the hotel except
herself, and they meant to rob the safe in the bureau to-morrow night.
Of course Mr. Lionel Belmont was a villain, or he would not have
deserted her poor dear mother; it was annoying, but indubitable.... Even
now he was maturing his plans round the corner with that Mr. Pank....
Burglars always went about in shirt-sleeves.... The brown b